What is so special about Battlefield?
There are many modern warfare shooter games out there, but the Battlefield series has a strong following. The original BF 1942 is still played, as are the rest of the older games in the series. All shooters offer a thrilling adrenaline rush from engaging in-your-face fast paced combat. But Battlefield offers more than that. Much more. The first, and central, element of Battlefield is teamwork.
For sure, all team games require some level of teamwork. But in Battlefield, the need for teamwork and the tools to apply it and reward it are built into the game system. The size of the teams — 32 vs 32 plus commanders — requires some sort of organization in order to allow for any sort of planned action. Battlefield has many elements whose entire purpose is to help the players operate as a team rather than individuals.
Kits: The Classes Of Battlefield
First, there are the kits. Each offers weapons and equipment not available to the others. No single player can have all the tools needed to succeed or operate in every situation in the game. But beyond that, each of Battlefield 4’s kits offers tools — gadgets — which exist specifically to help out other members of the team.
The assault is the team medic, with medical equipment. The engineer is the team mechanic, able to fix vehicles and equipment. The support is the team supplier, with extra ammunition. And the recon is the team spotter, with tools to locate – spot — enemies on the map, and laser markers to guide weapons to their target. The recon also has the very useful Spawn Beacon, which creates a reinforcement location for team mates to respawn on the map.
The use of these items is not only essential to help the team, but it rewards the players with points. The game has many point awards for assisting the team, as well as points for taking or helping take team objectives. It is entirely possible to score many points simply by supporting your team properly, and even possible to lead the scoreboard with zero kills. Of course, kills do count for points, but the point is that this game rewards actively supporting your team very well.
Specialization
The kits in Battlefield also divide the soldiers into specialties in other ways. In Battlefield 4, the assault has assault rifles — the best all-range weapon — and the best anti-infantry gadgets, the grenade launcher and underbarrel shotguns. The engineer has the heavy antivehicle weapons — rockets and mines — and has the biggest “bang” of any of the kits. The best short range weapon, the PDW, makes the engineer the best close combat (and jump out of a vehicle and kill people) soldier as well. The support has the LMGs with lots of ammo to provide suppressing covering fire, plus a wide range of indirect explosive fire and defensive gadgets to support teammates. The recon has the very long range sniper rifles, able hit and kill targets at any range in potentially one shot. Coupled with detection and spotting gadgets, plus useful explosives for stealthy demolition attacks.
The combination of gadget choices, the field upgrade perks, and the various weapons available to all kits to supplement the kit’s specific weapons, make each kit customizable into two major, and many minor, sub-specializations. The field upgrade paths define these as:
Assault — Grenadier or Medic
Engineer — Mechanic or Anti-Tank (AT)
Support — Indirect Fire (ammo) or Perimeter Defense (suppression)
Recon — Sniper or Spec Ops
All these options means that a squad, and team, need to coordinate in order to have soldiers on the field with the tools needed to succeed. Whether with friends or random players, it is common to ask who is doing what, or to select your equipment and specialty to fit what is missing. You can’t be nearly as effective if everyone picks whatever they want, and there is a use for every role the game offers.
Rewards
It isn’t just individual specialization and effort which is rewarded in Battlefield. The game offers rewards — points on the scoreboard and XP — for doing things to assist your team. Healing, repairing, supplying ammo, spotting and marking enemies, and many different ways of providing assistance and support in battle, all give you points. Again, unlike in many other games, filling a supporting role in the game can give players at any skill level the ability to truly contribute to the team.
Squads: Making The Team
Squads are the heart of the team organization. Assisting your squad gives bonus points, more than just assisting random team mates. The squad has a leader, and that leader has special responsibilities and rewards. The first person to join an empty squad is automatically the squad leader. This tends to be randomly assigned at the start of a game, but a group of friendly players can make a new squad or swap in and out to get the player who wants to role to have it.
In Battlefield 4, squads can have up to five members, and there are advantages for having a full squad. A big one is deploy (spawn) locations. In Battlefield, depending on game mode and server settings, you can have many choices for where you appear when you enter the game map. Controlled flags, open seats in vehicles, marked spawn locations or even paradrop entry points, all can be available. But being able to spawn on your squad mates or squad leader (hardcore, classic, and custom limit this to joining on squad leader only) is a unique Battlefield team work feature. As long as one of your squad remains alive, you can rejoin the action where they are. This makes working with your squad mates and keeping them alive very advantageous in the game. You also get points for team mates spawning on you, another reward to encourage you to work with your squad.
The Field Upgrades (Perks) system is actually dependent on squad efforts. Earning squad points for helping your squad out unlocks higher perks from your upgrades, making your soldier more effective. Having your squad wiped — no members alive — sets back your progress. Keeping your squad mates, and yourself, alive makes your squad more effective on the battlefield.
Leadership
Of all the squad elements which enhance teamwork, the squad leader’s ability to give orders to the squad, to take or hold objectives, is the greatest. All squad members can see the designated location and know to go there or stay there. Both squad leader and members are rewarded with bonus points for engaging the objectives, and these are among the highest bonuses given in the game. All players present at an objective, assisting in capturing flags or destroying targets, get bonus points, but the squad bonuses are much higher still. One very cool element is that the orders, along with the special messages available in the Commo Rose, work without the players needing a common language — the images are visual or are translated into localized languages. For a game played world-wide, this can be a big help for team work and communication.
The Big Boss Of Battlefield 4
The Commander provides the final level of teamwork in games where one is available. By working on the big picture, seeing the entire map, the commander can give orders to every squad, helping to coordinate the entire team’s efforts. The commander’s assets — especially the scanning UAVs — provide an advantage to the team, but when good squad leaders work with the commander, especially when they communicate (both text and voice chat is available along with the orders system), the team can be considerably more effective. Both squad leaders and commander get points when assets are used and orders are followed.
Even without the commander’s input, voice and text chat can keep a team coordinated. But a wonderful thing tends to happen in games with good players. Without any centralized direction, each squad leader can see areas needing extra effort on the map, and give orders to go there. Players can see an enemy force threatening to take an objective, and move to engage, to spot, to provide long range fire, and to select the most useful kit and weapons to fill in what is needed on the battlefield. A good commander and squad leaders make this work even better.
Objectives: The Key To Winning
Objectives! Battlefield is the game which created the term PTFO — Play The ******* Objective! Most game modes are won by going after game objectives — locations to control, flags to carry, bombs to deliver, locations to destroy, etc. Killing in itself has little benefit unless it is in support of achieving the objectives. Conquest and Rush, the two major classic game modes, do give benefits to kills but victory is achieved by taking the flags or destroying the MCOMs, regardless of the number of deaths on your team. You can go on a 50 kill streak and not only be on the losing team, but make little or no contribution to your team’s victory. This focuses combat around the objective locations, and makes tactical planning and team work a core part of the game.
Even death matches — squad and team DM — which are won based on the number of kills still benefit strongly from squad and even team organization. A squad with the right kit mix working together can engage and kill the enemy far better than a group of loners. Planning to control key map locations and work together to overwhelm enemies can rack up an impressive score. It is common to see a group of clan members grouped together on the leaderboard of a dominating team, because organized team play is so much more effective than lone wolf killing.
